Parents arrested after 4-year-old boy overdoses on fentanyl on his birthday



The Ohio parents of a four-year-old boy who overdosed on fentanyl on his birthday have been arrested, according to authorities.

A 4-year-old boy was thought to be napping in his bedroom at the father's home in Gold Manor, Ohio. However, the boy was found gasping for air on Nov. 25. According to court documents obtained by Fox19 Now, the young child suffered from "agonal breathing."

WebMD defines agonal breathing as: "Agonal breathing is when someone who is not getting enough oxygen is gasping for air. It is usually due to cardiac arrest or stroke. It's not true breathing. It's a natural reflex that happens when your brain is not getting the oxygen it needs to survive. Agonal breathing is a sign that a person is near death."

The boy was rushed to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Doctors determined that the 4 year old was overdosing on fentanyl and was a victim of child abuse, according to court docs.

The mother of the boy – 34-year-old Alexis Scarborough – was visiting the father's home to celebrate the child's birthday on the day he allegedly overdosed.

Scarborough was reportedly arrested on Monday.

The father of the child – 39-year-old Denard Bishop – had remained at large before being taken into custody by police on Thursday.

Scarborough was charged with one count of endangering children.

Bishop is also facing a criminal charge of endangering children. Court documents said the father "did neglect to show a duty of care and safety" for the boy.

Scarborough pleaded not guilty to the child endangerment charge during a hearing on Wednesday.

The judge rejected a request from the mother's lawyers to release her on her own recognizance so she could return to her job as a hotel housekeeper.

Scarborough's bond was set at $10,000. The judge ordered her not to have any contact with her children unless she received permission from child services.

Scarborough's children are currently in the care of Hamilton County Job & Family Services, according to her attorneys.

Bishop appeared in court for the first time on Friday.

The boy is expected to recover from the fentanyl overdose.

"Fortunately, hopefully, this child will be okay," said Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition co-chair chief Tom Synan.

"Luckily, they got medical attention," Synan stated. "It is something that in some cases you can reverse."

"And hopefully, there's no further impact, and the child and everyone in this incident learns from it and is able to take those safeguards and get the help and the resources they need so that they're not using drugs anymore," Synan added.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, there were 4,915 unintentional drug overdose deaths in 2022 in the state – a 5% decrease from 2021. Of the drug overdose fatalities, 81% involved fentanyl.

Ohio Department of Health director Bruce Vanderhoff said, "While the numbers headed in the right direction last year, they are no cause for celebration. Tragically, thousands of Ohioans are still dying from substance use disorders. I urge Ohioans to do what they can to prevent these deaths, from learning how to use naloxone to knowing where to turn for help for you or a loved one in need."

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Mom arrested after 4-year-old ODs on fentanyl on his birthday: court docs www.youtube.com

Ohio woman allegedly lured men with sex, then fatally drugged, robbed them. Police searching for more 'serial killing' victims.



An Ohio woman is accused of carrying out the "serial killings" of at least four men in Columbus. The woman allegedly lured the men to hotels with the promise of sex. However, the woman instead would fatally drug the men before stealing their belongings, according to the attorney general.

Rebecca Auborn was charged on Sept. 11 with aggravated robbery, felonious assault, murder, corruption of another with drugs, trafficking in drugs, and the illegal manufacture of drugs.

On Wednesday, authorities announced new charges for Auborn. The 33-year-old from Columbus is now facing four counts of murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter, five counts of aggravated robbery, five counts of felonious assault, five counts of corrupting another with drugs, one count of tampering with evidence, and four counts of trafficking in drugs — all felonies.

Investigators suspect Auborn to be involved with the overdose of four men and one who survived the encounter with the woman. The Central Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force received information that a woman was meeting men in northeast Columbus and then dosing the "johns" with drugs in order to steal their belongings.

Police believe Auborn lured a man to a hotel room with the promise of sex on Dec. 13, 2022. The man overdosed but survived.

Between January 2023 and June 2023, police said there were four men who suffered a fatal overdose of drugs while suspected of being with Auborn for sexual relations.

The Columbus Dispatch reported, "Court records from another case said Auborn admitted to detectives that she had mixed fentanyl in a man's crack pipe after meeting him for sex. In that case, Auborn told detectives she knew the man was overdosing, but took his vehicle and debit card, according to court records."

Investigators stressed that they believe there are more victims. Police are reinvestigating overdose deaths that happened near the other crime scenes from around the same timeline as the other deaths.

A statement from state Attorney General Dave Yost described the death as "serial killings."

"Don’t buy sex in Ohio – it ruins lives and could cost you yours," Yost said.

Auborn has been detained in the Franklin County jail. She is expected to appear in Franklin County Common Pleas Court for an arraignment on Friday.

Police are urging anyone with information related to the deadly overdose cases to contact the Columbus Division of Police homicide tip line at 614-645-2228.

‘Serial killings’: Columbus woman charged with deaths of men she met for sex www.youtube.com

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Fentanyl overdoses become No. 1 cause of death among Americans aged 18-45



The No. 1 killer of Americans aged 18-45 is fentanyl overdoses, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Families Against Fentanyl – a nonprofit with a mission to "fight illicitly manufactured fentanyl" – carried out an analysis of CDC data and discovered that fentanyl overdoses have become the No. 1 cause of death among U.S. adults, ages 18-45.

The analysis notes that between 2020 and 2021, nearly 79,000 Americans in that demographic died of fentanyl overdoses – 37,208 in 2020 and 41,587 in 2021. More Americans in that age range died from fentanyl overdoses than any other cause of death, including suicide, car accidents, cancer, and COVID-19, according to the report.

In all age brackets, fentanyl fatalities have nearly doubled in two years, from 32,754 fatalities in April 2019 to 64,178 deaths in April 2021. The opioid awareness organization Families Against Fentanyl finds that fentanyl, on average, fatally poisons one person every 8.57 minutes.

Buried in the CDC data: \nFentanyl poisoning is now the #1 Cause of Death Among Americans 18-45\n\nSurpassing Suicide, Covid-19 and Car accidentshttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1S0szR2Ua9v0Sr91YhDD7gPrXsDkHxDvP/view?usp=sharing\u00a0\u2026
— Families Against Fentanyl (@Families Against Fentanyl) 1639613120

Illicitly manufactured fentanyl overdose deaths increased in Western, Southern, and Midwestern states between 2019 and 2020, according to a CDC report published on Tuesday.

"The research determined that fentanyl-related overdose fatalities surpassed 1,800 in Western states in the second half of last year, amid the coronavirus pandemic. This amounts to an almost 94 percent increase compared to the same period in 2019," The Hill reported.

"Southern states saw more than 4,300 deaths involving fentanyl between July and December 2020, a nearly 65 percent increase compared to the second half of 2019. Fentanyl-related fatalities rose 33 percent in Midwestern states, reaching beyond 2,000 in the second half of last year," the outlet added.

James Rauh – founder of Families Against Fentanyl – told Fox News, "This is a national emergency. America’s young adults — thousands of unsuspecting Americans — are being poisoned. It is widely known that illicit fentanyl is driving the massive spike in drug-related deaths. A new approach to this catastrophe is needed."

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"An overdose occurs when a drug produces serious adverse effects and life-threatening symptoms," the National Institute on Drug Abuse explained. "When people overdose on fentanyl, their breathing can slow or stop. This can decrease the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain, a condition called hypoxia. Hypoxia can lead to a coma and permanent brain damage, and even death."

Between April 2020 and April 2021, there were 100,306 overall drug overdose deaths – the first time the death toll reached six figures in a 12-month period, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics. In April, overall drug overdose deaths rose a whopping 28% from the year before.

"Synthetic opioids, including illicitly manufactured fentanyls (IMFs), were involved in 64% of >100,000 estimated U.S. drug overdose deaths during May 2020–April 2021," the CDC states.

Overall drug overdose deaths are projected to hit another grim milestone in 2021, with more than 100,000 deaths for the year, according to the CDC.

CDC: US drug overdose deaths surged during COVID-19 pandemic, most since opioid epidemic began



A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an alarming jump in the number of drug overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from the CDC shows that drug overdose deaths in the U.S. increased by nearly 29% during the pandemic.

The CDC report discovered that more than 87,000 Americans died from drug overdose deaths from September 2019 to September 2020. The one-year period death toll is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a year since the opioid epidemic began in the 1990s, according to the New York Times. Overdose deaths had declined slightly in 2018, the first decrease in decades.

More Americans died of drug overdoses in the year leading to September 2020 than any 12-month period since the opio… https://t.co/H1FQUj9C4U
— Axios (@Axios)1618452720.0

The data was collected by the National Center for Health Statistics, but the CDC noted that the actual number of overdose deaths is likely higher.

"Provisional drug overdose death data are often incomplete, and the degree of completeness varies by jurisdiction and 12-month ending period," the CDC stated. "Consequently, the numbers of drug overdose deaths are underestimated based on provisional data relative to final data and are subject to random variation."

The largest increases in drug overdose deaths happened in April and May 2020, when government-mandated lockdowns were the strictest.

The areas with the largest increases in drug overdose deaths: District of Columbia (61.2%), Louisiana (54%), Kentucky (50%), West Virginia (47.3%), and Colorado (43%).

Also this week, Maryland's Opioid Operational Command Center revealed that 2,773 people died from drug and alcohol overdoses, the most by far in the state since records were kept. Nearly 84% of all reported overdoses were attributed to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

Last week, the CDC announced the launch of Overdose Prevention Programs, which will supply the public with rapid fentanyl testing strips.

"The test strips can be used to see if drugs have been mixed or cut with fentanyl," WSPA-TV reported. "The goal is to provide drug users more information, so that they can reduce the chances of overdosing on the drug."

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump declared the national opioid crisis to be a public health emergency.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said reasons for increased drug addiction could stem from: "Historically high unemployment rates and preventative physical distancing measures have also exacerbated social isolation and despair, known risk factors for substance use disorders."

A report from the Associated Press released in December found that there were far more overdose deaths than COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco in 2020.

During the coronavirus pandemic, there were also reports of increased suicides of students in Las Vegas, a record-high number of suicidal students in San Francisco, and a 39% increase in suicides in Japan last October.

Horowitz: Someone tell Dr. Fauci: Drugs killed four times as many San Franciscans this year as COVID-19



In a wide-ranging interview with CNN's Jake Tapper yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he believes the excess deaths we are seeing this year show that the COVID-19 death count is higher than what's officially being reported. "It certainly suggests that is the case," Fauci said in response to Tapper's assertion of over 20% more excess deaths. "Unless you can find another reason — which I can't think of — of there being these excess deaths in the context of coronavirus, you'd have to make an assumption that it's reasonably possible, if not likely, that those are deaths that are related to corona and they are just not being counted."

It's one thing to assert that the cost of panic, lockdown, and social isolation are somehow worth Fauci's alleged gains in preventing coronavirus deaths. But to deny the fact that we are seeing excess deaths this year that are not explained by the virus itself, but likely due to our response to it, is willful blindness. Nowhere is this more evident than with drug overdoses.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, half of the bodies in the city's morgue are from drug overdoses — with the city on pace for 700 drug fatalities by the end of the year. That is a staggering 59% increase from last year. It's hard to explain such an increase in one year without taking into account the mental health toll of the lockdown and social isolation. As city supervisor Matt Haney observed, "It's already killed four times as many people as COVID."

Through Aug. 31, there were 468 drug overdose fatalities. According to city data, there were just 91 reported COVID-19 deaths at that point. That means that just the excess drug deaths over last year alone are outpacing the deaths from the virus. This is occurring in many other parts of the country, such as in Nashville and in Ohio. In many of these states, the surge in drug deaths since 2013 had finally stabilized before the lockdowns. For Fauci to suggest that there is no explanation for excess deaths above and beyond the official COVID count is quite insidious.

What is further shocking about Fauci's disregard for the collateral damage of the mental health crisis is that these deaths are by and large among young people. The number of years of life lost due to the panic is enormous. As I noted in the case study of Tennessee, excess deaths for the elderly barely registered in that state. On the other hand, there is a notable bump in deaths among those ages 25-44, most likely because of Nashville's drug overdose crisis.

The sharp bump in excess deaths nationwide among younger people lays waste to Fauci's theory of undercounting COVID-19 deaths. It's one thing to suggest we are missing more COVID deaths among the elderly, but if the excess deaths (over and beyond the official COVID death count) are largely being driven by younger people, it is very hard to assert that we are missing thousands of coronavirus deaths among a cohort that is not really threatened by the virus, especially with our liberal methods of counting.

My friend Kyle Lamb of RationalGround.com prepared a table of excess deaths by age cohort based on CDC excess death data through Aug. 31.

Source: RationalGround.com

Based on this data, we are on pace to finish the year with 30,260 deaths above forecasted baseline deaths for those under 45, but only 8,307 deaths from COVID-19 in those same groups. That means that non-COVID-19 excess deaths (21,953) would be 2.6 times higher than excess deaths from COVID-19 (8,307). And remember, that includes those young folks who died in motorcycle accidents but tested positive for COVID and, ironically, in some cases, those who died of drug overdoses!

It's truly shocking how our leaders continue to brazenly ignore the collateral damage of their policies even as the World Health Organization (WHO) is warning of the ill effects of lockdown. On Sunday, Dr. David Nabarro, one of the top WHO officials and a special envoy on the virus, appealed to world leaders to stop "using lockdowns as your primary control method" for the virus. While noting the increased poverty and child malnutrition induced by lockdowns, Nabarro categorically stated, "We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus."

Sadly, Fauci continues to move the goalposts from 15 days to flatten the curve so hospitals aren't overrun to a permanent control over our lives. The only way he can do so is to ignore the physical health, mental health, and economic consequences of his policies — even when they are in plain sight.